


splitting skin

by dandelionslute



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: BAMF Jaskier, Blood, Canon Typical Violence, Captured, Feral Jaskier, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier is an idiot, M/M, Restraints, Strangulation, Whump, drugged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27159703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionslute/pseuds/dandelionslute
Summary: Geralt and Jaskier are ambushed by Nilfgaardian soldiers hunting Ciri.-He meant to howl it across the room at Jaskier, but the word came out as a slurred mutter instead -run.He lost consciousness with the aching thought that Jaskier would never have been able to hear it.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 19
Kudos: 409





	splitting skin

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote for Whumptober that I've been sitting on for a while.
> 
> I haven't edited this since I wrote it. Any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

He’d been hoping the night would end up in a blur - just not quite like this.

He’d been enjoying the rare comforts of warm stew, fresh bread and hoppy ale - grateful to be off the cold road and into the fire warmed inn. Jaskier was no-doubt off flirting again, but Geralt couldn’t find it within himself to care much. He’d end up in their bed before dawn either way.

The tavern grew rowdier as the night grew darker, but the sounds soon became dull and muted. He swallowed a mouthful of stew but the movement was slow and thick; his head feeling too heavy on his shoulders and it lulled slightly to the left. The spoon slipped from his grip to the table with a clang that barely sounded in his ears.

With his eyes beginning to roll and flutter, he desperately combed the room for Jaskier - to somehow call out to him; warn him. Instead his gaze fell upon on a large man dressed all in black, sitting in the distant corner, watching him intently with folded arms. Geralt’s stomach dropped as he realised what was happening. He flexed his fingers around the mug in his hand, but his grasp felt loose, the muscles too weak.

_Fuck, how had he not smelled it?_

With great difficulty he pulled his eyes away from the man and kept scanning for the bright blue of Jaskier’s jerkin - one that stood out amongst even the more colourful crowds.

And find him he did - leaning sideways against a wall and whispering into the ear of _another_ darkly-dressed man who, even with Jaskier’s full attention and tactile tendencies, seemed more interested in watching Geralt. Panic sparked in his chest and spread like wildfire through his limbs.

He meant to howl it across the room at Jaskier, but the word came out as a slurred mutter instead -

_run._

He lost consciousness with the aching thought that Jaskier would never have been able to hear it.

-

_Fists in his hair, holding his head up. Words spat into his face._

_Bare knuckles splitting skin; pain tearing through the haze._

_A quick kick to his kneecap and his legs give way under his own unsteady weight._

_Cheekbone forced onto the cold stone floor by a foot on the other._

_"_ _Where’s the girl?”_

_No answer rewards him with an unmistakable crack when a heavy boot meet his ribs._

_“Where’s the girl?”_

_“I don’t know.” Blood on the floor as he garbles his reply._

_“Lies.”_

_He’s barely awake until he’s not anymore._

-

Geralt awakens to the tickling trickle of warm blood past the corner of his eye and down his temple. Pain throbs like hammering hooves behind his eyebrow, his mouth filled with the taste of blood, his lip stinging where he feels the skin split open wide. Raising his chin from his chest takes all the energy he has. He blinks heavily and realises one eye can’t quite open all the way, so he squints through the darkness with the one that can. A tiny sliver of moonlight spreads blue-green shadows across the empty room.

Even through his clothing, the feel of harsh, cold metal digging into his ankles is impossible to ignore. A weak shake of his leg sends the sound of clanging metal through the air and he feels the taut pull where the shackles must be anchored to the floor.

He feels the rough burn of rope cutting into his wrists and his head falls under the weight of gravity as he looks down at them. He finds them tightly bound together - thick rope looped back and forth between them. _Easy. Rope can break._ He yanks his wrists apart in one quick movement and instead of snapping, the rope squeezes tight around his neck without warning, stealing the breath from his throat.

He chokes and coughs, instinctively relaxing his hands, wheezing as the rope around his neck slackens. He catches his breath cautiously, and this time slowly pulls his wrists apart. The rope around his neck tightens again. _Fuck_. He surveys his surroundings and finds his wrists are not bound to the floor like his ankles, nor the wall. Instead, his captors have snaked the rope from his wrists up and around his own throat; a clever way to ensure that any attempt to break free would, in fact, strangle him instead.

He spits blood onto the floor. _Bastards._

-

“He didn’t say a word?”

Geralt picks up the distant talking, footsteps slowly growing nearer.

“He claims not to know.”

“Forgive me, Reyner, but how can we be sure he _doesn’t?_ ”

The footsteps stop. Silence.

The same man speaks quickly. “I apologise-”

“Of _course_ he knows,” Reyner spits, and the footsteps quicken again. “Let’s see how talkative he is with some incentive.”

Geralt can practically hear the twisted smile in Reyner’s voice with his next command.

“Get me the bard.”

Geralt’s heart beats faster than he’s ever felt it.

-

Not much time passes before the heavy door creaks open loudly on its hinges. The sound echoes through the empty room and rings through his ears, hollow, and deafening. He recognises the man that stands in the doorway as the man watching him from the corner of the tavern, a smug smirk now spread across his face.

 _Must be Reyner_.

Geralt glares at him through his one good eye, unblinking, his breath shallow as to keep the rope from scratching further against his tender neck.

The soldier walks into the room with one arm outstretched behind him, and he unceremoniously drags Jaskier from the darkened hallway and shoves him forward. Geralt’s breath catches in his chest and he doesn’t exhale it. Jaskier trips up on his shackled ankles and stumbles before catching himself, turning to glare at the man.

“I told you already to get your _filthy_ hands off me - don’t you know how expensive this doublet is?”

“I don’t give a shit about your fancy clothes, bard,” Reyner hisses, digging his fingers into Jaskier’s shoulder and shoving him to the ground. Jaskier falls with a thud to his hands and knees on grimy floor and the look on his face is one of utter disgust. He lifts his head.

Sparkling blue eyes shine through the darkness at him as Jaskier pans them slowly across Geralt’s features, widening in horror at the broken, bruising, bleeding skin. 

“Geralt! Oh Gods you’re alive,” he cries, pushing up from the floor to his knees. “I didn’t tell them anything, I swear it-”

“Witcher,” Reyner interrupts, cracking his knuckles. He throws Geralt a depraved smirk. “How’s your face?”

Geralt doesn’t look away from Jaskier, trying desperately to keep the look of overwhelming feeling of panic and relief off his face. There’s a split high on Jaskier’s cheekbone with a bruise blooming beneath it, but he looks otherwise unscathed. Geralt can smell the fear dripping from his skin, but it’s nothing compared to the anger.

“Still not very talkative, are we?” Reyner asks casually, eyes curiously focused on Geralt.

Jaskier laughs sardonically, tossing his head back. “Geralt is never talkative. Trust me, this is normal for him-”

“Shut the fuck up bard,” Reyner says through gritted teeth as he takes a fistful of Jaskier’s hair, shoving his head down forcefully.

“Shutting up,” he winces as he’s thrown forward, keeping his head low but bringing his eyes back to meet Geralt’s.

Geralt’s mouth tightens and he shakes his head urgently - a gesture not unlike he were trying to subtly say _please, please shut up_. He curses the bard’s seemingly absent sense of self-preservation. Perhaps travelling with Geralt too long had made him careless; cocky.

“Now, _Witcher_ , we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either tell us where the girl is on your own accord, or we’ll see if you’re any more talkative when I start cutting pieces off your bard.”

“ _Please_ don’t cut my pieces,” Jaskier groans, and Reyner, seeming to lose both his composure and temper, curls his body over Jaskier’s in one quick motion and squeezes a hand around his throat. Jaskier splutters and scratches at Reyner’s forearm, and for the first time Geralt clearly notices the lack of bindings around his wrists. Reyner’s other hand comes to rest on the small dagger held in his waistband.

He grins down at Jaskier and then snaps his head to Geralt with a depraved grin. “I think I’ll start with his tongue.”

Geralt’s bares his teeth. “Stop,” he growls, watching Jaskier’s face turn red, desperately scrambling for air.

Reyner stares at Geralt for a long moment before releasing his hold. He laughs loudly, roughly mussing Jaskier’s hair like a child as the poet gasps for breath and coughs.

“I’ve heard stories of the mighty Witcher travelling with the.. _not so mighty_ bard,” he says, circling Jaskier who shoots him a filthy glare between heavy breaths. “Although I would never have thought he’d mean enough to you to give up the girl.” His lips curl into an ugly smile and he steps closer to Geralt. “So where is she? Tell me, and I’ll let your little poet go free.”

Geralt snorts. “Even if I _believed_ that, I have nothing to tell. _I don’t know_ where she is.”

Reyner sighs and pinches his eyebrows, his face pained. He moves to stand between the two of them and crowds in close.

“Do we have to do this _again_? I’m rather tired from the _last_ beating I gave you. And now with that rope around your neck, it wouldn’t take much to strangle you - or perhaps you would strangle yourself. Hm, maybe we _should_ do this again-”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I _don’t_ _know_ where she is,” Geralt interrupts, speaking through tight teeth.

Behind Reyner, he sees Jaskier moving. Ever so slowly, shifting his weight backwards off his knees to crouch on his feet and plant his hands on the floor in front of him, positioned akin to an animal about to lunge. Geralt dips his head and feigns a rough coughing fit to mask the sounds of the shackles chiming around Jaskier’s ankles.

Reyner narrows his eyes and looks at Geralt with a furrowed brow. “And how do I know you’re telling the truth, and you’ve not got her hidden away in a secret keep or castle?”

“You think I have a castle?” Geralt laughs dryly, and it earns him a sharp backhand across his already bruising cheek.

“You’d do best to mind your tongue, else you might lose it like your bard here,” Reyner spits, his fingers dancing on the hit of his dagger as he turns back to Jaskier.

Jaskier chooses this moment to launch the full weight of himself forward with a loud cry, knocking Reyner off balance and sending them both crashing to the hard floor.

Reyner might be strong, but Jaskier’s quick, and as he scrambles to his knees over the soldier he brings both fists down as hard as he can into his stomach. Reyner wheezes and his body curls in as the blow forces the air from him, and Jaskier takes the opportunity to wrap both hands around his throat, squeezing tight, nails digging in to the skin in reddening half-moons.

Reyner’s eyes bulge, his hands scratching at the ground before he throws them up around Jaskier’s forearms, desperate to pull the bard away. Jaskier shakes with effort and growls through a clenched jaw as he holds on tight while Reyner struggles and flails beneath him.

Geralt’s powerless to help, bound to the floor and himself, but the shine of Reyner’s dagger abandoned on the floor catches his eye.

“Jaskier!” he shouts, voice strained.

Jaskier whips around at the sound of his name and Geralt flicks his head in the direction of the knife, laying off to the side of them. Reyner sees it too, and throws out an arm. He splays his hand and desperately reaches with his fingers, but it’s too far.

In barely a second Jaskier’s eyes dart from the knife, to Reyner, and back to the knife, and he throws himself off the soldier towards it. Reyner scrambles and launches himself after Jaskier a moment later, but Jaskier gets there first and he throws himself to his back with the knife thrust out in front of him.

It’s too late for Reyner to do anything else and he falls onto Jaskier. The knife pierces just below his collarbone and he wails. Jaskier writhes under the weight of him and with a growl from the back of his throat, he pulls the knife free and stabs Reyner’s chest again, and again.

The metallic scent of blood bursts into the air and fills Geralt’s nose; his head a mix of the desperate, ragged sounds from Jaskier as fights for both of their lives, and the struggling sounds as Reyner’s energy begins to falter.

Jaskier screws up his face before turning his head away and plunging the knife into Reyner’s throat, tearing it through his neck and gagging at the feel of hot blood spilling onto his hand. Reyner’s full weight suddenly comes collapsing down on top of him. Jaskier doesn’t slow and pushes him off sideways, scurrying out from underneath him and across the floor.

Through Jaskier’s laboured breathing, Geralt hears three heartbeats; his own at its steady, usual pace, Jaskier’s pounding so loud in his ears that they might burst, and Reyner’s starting to stutter and slow, fading away.

Jaskier can’t help but watch breathlessly as blood bubbles from Reyner’s lips and spills from his throat, the light in his eyes dimming and disappearing. Jaskier twists around to stare at Geralt with wide eyes, the bloody knife still gripped tight in his hand. He swallows hard enough that Geralt can hear it.

“Who’s _not so mighty_ now?” he pants, voice shaking, but a proud defiance shines in his eyes.

Geralt means to speak, but he’s not quite sure what to say, and suddenly his attention is drawn to the faraway footsteps in the hallway only he can detect. He turns quickly to Jaskier. “We need to leave - _now_. Cut the rope free - I’ll deal with the shackles."

-

Jaskier doesn’t stop dragging Geralt along behind him until they’re far from the fort, past the thick lines of trees and deep into the forest. They’re both breathless, not far from falling over, and Geralt stops running to lean against a tree, doubling over. He can’t remember the last time his whole body ached so desperately with pain and exhaustion.

“Jaskier,” he says through heavy breaths. “You-”

“I just _killed_ a man, Geralt,” Jaskier exclaims with disbelief, running his hands through his hair and then pulling them away quickly, grimacing at the blood on them. “Fuck, Geralt, I thought we were done for. Who the f-”

“Nilfgaard,” Geralt rasps, and Jaskier physically recoils at the shattered sound of his voice. “Cirilla.”

“Don’t talk,” Jaskier shakes his head. “Let’s just get somewhere safe for the night - you need to rest and heal, Geralt, you look like hell.”

Geralt stares at him with a weary scowl. “No shit.” He pauses, inhaling deeply. “You did good, Jaskier.”

“I did _good_? I saved your _life_. I’ll admit, I hadn’t the slightest clue what I was doing, but I _saved your life_ ,” Jaskier huffs, waving his hand dismissively. “Nevermind. Save your voice, Witcher, you can thank me tomorrow,” he adds more gently, putting his hand on Geralt’s shoulder and sliding it up the muscle to cup around his neck. “We don’t want your voice any more gruff and gravelly than it already is. Although better you than me - imagine if _I_ were to lose my voice like that - oh, can you imagine Geralt? On second thought, don’t answer that.”

“I can see why Reyner wanted to cut out your tongue,” Geralt says with a dry smile.

Jaskier feigns offence and drops his hand from Geralt’s neck. “You ass. Why did I even bother saving you? he asks, turning and stomping away. Geralt counts ten paces before Jaskier turns back around, huffs, and tilts his head expectantly.

“ _Well?_ Are you with me?”

Geralt winces as he pushes off the tree.

“Always."

Jaskier smiles, and he smiles back. And the splitting skin is worth it.


End file.
